Written by Don Byrd
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom today released their 2014 report on the state of religious liberty around the world. As every year, the Commission – which was created by Congress in 1998 – made recommendations to the State Department about which countries should be added to the list of “countries of particular concern” for egregious violations of religious freedom.
This year, the USCIRF makes the case for 8 countries to be added to this list: the same seven they recommended in the 2013 report, plus Syria.
Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Vietnam. USCIRF also recommended that the following eight countries be re-designated as “countries of particular concern,” or CPCs: Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.
Explaining the addition of Syria to the list, the Commission says:
The regime’s targeting of Sunni Muslims and other individuals or groups that oppose it and its indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas have killed tens of thousands of Syrians and displaced millions. In addition, extremist and U.S.-designated terrorists groups, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), target religious minority communities, including Christians and Alawites, because of their faith, and internationally-recognized opposition military groups have committed religious freedom violations when working with other groups to secure strategic areas. The existing humanitarian disaster and egregious human rights and religious freedom violations pose a serious danger to Syria’s religious diversity post-conflict. Due to the collective actions of the Bashar al-Assad regime, internationally-recognized opposition groups, and extremist and U.S.-designated terrorist groups, USCIRF recommends, for the first time, that Syria be designated as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act.
In addition, the Commission added Malaysia and Turkey to the list of “Tier 2” countries (“for governments that engage in or tolerate violations that are serious”), along with the 8 countries from last year’s Tier 2 list: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, and Russia.
You can read the entire report here. A press release from the Commission is here.
